"iFacilitate is a 6 week open workshop that introduces a variety of facilitation skills to help participants engage learners across a range of conversational spaces, including online discussion forums, web conferencing rooms, and wikis and blogs. This workshop explores building online learning communities and communities of practice within the context of online courses and webinars. It is also designed to provide participants with an experience of engagement in an online learning community. Online learning communities develop through interaction among participants. "

The COETAIL program (Certificate of Educational Technology and Information Literacy) is based on best practice student-centered online learning theories and techniques. Harnecing the newest and latest in Web 2.0 technologies the program leads educators through a process not only demonstrates how to use technologes but allows educators to apply their learning in their own school and classroom.

Life in the 21st century provides a whole new world of opportunities for self-directed, passion-driven, personalized learning. Educators who are ready to move on from teaching the way they were taught, and have administrators who will let them, can begin supporting students using tools and strategies available to the 21st century learner.

I appreciate the sample announcement letter for the parents - it was a good reminder to involve parents. - post by Victoria Zhang

Love the video though I do wonder whether it is scripted by the students or the teacher! - post by Victoria Zhang

This lesson is very interesting - it will require tweaks though to fit into my classroom. I am not sure whether every students' parents have access to the internet or know how to use the blogs... - post by Victoria Zhang

Monday, February 21, 2011

A few years ago I was asked to come help in a science classroom. It was the end of the quarter. All around the room were huge posters. The teacher had assigned a project where students took photos of various plants showing growth over time. The photos were pasted on big pieces of poster board and a description written next to each picture. When I walked in, kids were ripping the posters off the wall and tearing them to shreds. The project was over, time to move on. I was struck by how sad this was. All that work and for what?

I often hear students say at the end of the year they don't need any of their work. It's done and over with. We have some great projects going on, but for some reason, it's hard to collect and share them publicly. We have so many options for storing work: web space, Google Apps for Ed, E-mail, blogs, wikis, Nings, the list goes on and on.

My questions:

Is it too hard to collect digital projects?

Is it that teachers don't know how to share or is it just a part of teaching culture that as soon as we are done with one project we must quickly move on the the next topic?

Are teachers uncomfortable sharing student work?

Does it take too long to organize student work to be shared?

Can students help in the process?

I intend to find out how difficult it is to collect work. Using some of the tools we'll be exploring in class, I aim to take a look at this practice and see if I can develop ways to help teachers and students show and celebrate student work.

I have been in a high school one to one laptop environment for eight years. In the last three years, things have really ramped up. Technology really is ubiquitous in our district. We have also been working on rewriting our beliefs, and it's clear that everyone understands that we are committed to Digital Age Learning. We understand that as learners, we must all create, communicate, connect and collaborate. We are focusing on better ways of teaching and learning. I guess we are really trying "New Things in New Ways".

The questions for the course are:

1) What are your learning goals for this course?

I have never learned well online. I really need practice at writing and learning in this environment. If we expect students to participate in online learning, then I feel I want to have the same experience.

Practice writing and blogging. I just don't reflect enough.

I would like to look at this as a model for our school professional development. For as long as we have had technology and for the amount of reflection we do in our practice, it's very difficult to push others to see the value of blogging and sharing online, particularly among colleagues.

2) In what ways are you hoping to connect what you learn here with your own practice?

Experience being part of an online course. I work in a high school. We offer a three credit course each year. We have always had an online component, but now we are thinking about making the entire course online in the summer.

We are very lucky to have a great deal of professional development built in to our schedule. We each do a yearly portfolio based around the collaborative inquiry model. I would like to be able to give teachers more online options.

Model for teachers what Open online learning is all about.

My two colleagues and I already use an inquiry type model for working with teachers on learning technology skills. They must design something that has purpose for their students. I am anxious to learn more about the inquiry process, especially online.

Collaborative assessment must be part of our learning today. We, as educators are doing our students a disservice if we don’t attempt to make this type of assessment available to our students. There are few professions and work environments that only focus on individual competencies. Most modern work environments involve some type of collaboration or connected problem solving to enhance their corporation or product. However, the inevitable barriers surface in the form of social and digital media taboos.

"This resource is the collaborative effort of a group of experienced educators and entrepreneurs who have united to share their experience and ideas, and create a project geared toward making learning relevant to life in our new digital age. Our purpose is to develop exceptional resources to assist in transforming learning to be relevant to life in the 21st Century. At the core of this project are our Curriculum Integration Kits - engaging, challenge based learning modules designed to cultivate the essential 21st Century Fluencies within the context of the required curriculum."

Welcome to A Parents' Guide to Facebook (PDF). It’s designed to help you understand what Facebook is and how to use it safely. With it, you will be better informed and able to communicate with young Facebook users in your life more effectively. That's important because 1) if something goes wrong, we want our children to come to us and 2) as the Internet becomes increasingly social and mobile, a parent’s guidance and support are ever more key to young people’s well-being in social media and technology. The guidebook is published in partnership with the iKeepSafe Coalition.

"Information and communications technologies (ICT) policies in schools have two dimensions. One is to ensure that students are protected from pernicious materials on the Internet. The other is to enable student access to the extensive resources on the Internet for learning and teaching. While these two dimensions are not intrinsically in conflict, in actuality, such can become the case."

Saturday, February 19, 2011

John "Pathfinder" Lester and the Virtual Maine Group, Mary, Kern, and Paul join us to unveil the news about their work on Reaction Grid with students. It's very exciting that Kern's school will be buying an island so that students can learn more about virtual worlds in a safe environment.

"With many schools bumping up against their limit of snow days and with almost two months of winter remaining, what can you do to prepare for the inevitable? Join us in the evening of February 17th to explore how you can “Flip” your classroom."

Monday, February 14, 2011

It is one thing hearing this hours after it happened on the evening news; it is quite another thing reading it seconds after it was posted by a real person in the thick of events. It's chilling and riveting, actually, and an amazing opportunity for students to learn about world events first-hand, right NOW, real-time. So how can you make this happen in your classroom? Here's the simplest way to get started . . .

"Digital media is increasingly present in kids' formal and informal educational settings, becoming as common as pencils and notebooks were to their parents. Yet in many American classrooms and homes, these high-tech tools are severely limited or forbidden. Teachers and parents wonder: What are students doing with these technologies?"

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Priya and Maya Ganesan from TEDxRedmond joined us for a conversation about creativity in schools and ideas around being perfect. Both are students and met Bob at the conference. After some technical difficulties, we managed to have a great discussion!Geek of the Week LinksPodcast and Chat

"Educators everywhere are asking how can we use the new mobile devices like iPad and iPod touch in the classroom? What’s good? What’s bad? Why? So, we thought we’d put a site together to share what we use for teaching and learning - not just a list of apps that someone thinks might be cool. The site will be updated regularly so bookmark the site and come back often or connect using your favorite social site below!"